During my journey, I collected a few hundred aviation quotes. Here are just a few I collected regarding two special breeds of pilots, Barnstormers and Cropdusters:
Never take a pilot’s picture before the flight. ~ Gordon Baxter told me about a WWI French Ace who posed just before his last flight. ~Berle ______, another writer for FLYING Magazine told me this as well at Sun ‘n Fun in 1981.
If you fly over a cowboy's dead horse, your engine will quit. (Barnstormers often think of themselves as cowboys, riding their horses through the air.) ~Johnnie Vincent, cowboy, crop duster & skywriter for Rosie O’Grady’s Flying Circus, Orlando, 1988, dear friend and formation wingman in Rosie’s Ag Cat on my journey’s first and last flights.
Never watch an aircraft fly out of sight. It is bad luck for the pilot and passengers onboard the aircraft. ~Johnnie Vincent
(Ever since Johnnie told me that, I’ve closed my eyes or turned my gaze after watching friends take off, before I can no longer see them. And on the ground I look away just at the last moment before a loved one walks or drives out of sight. So far, it's worked.)
The air beneath bridges is "dead" and will not support a flying aeroplane. ~Ray Stits
Fly with a glass flask. The liquid inside will show you which way is up in the clouds. ~Captain Chuck Downey, #78 pilot, Illinois
My father, a cropduster wore falsies on his ears.
~ Tulsa, Oklahoma FBO manager (the one who told me to wake up and get out of his office – and a minute later changed his mind).
Hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror.
~ Tim Newharth, cropduster, California
